From Huffington Post

I was lucky enough to have met with Benazir Bhutto when she was a guest at a White House Project event nearly ten years ago. Commanding and quick-witted, Bhutto spoke movingly about women's leadership and its integral importance to democracy. The next and last time I would see her would be at this year's Council on Foreign Policy lunch in New York shortly before she was to return to Pakistan. I was impressed with her statements on democracy, yet what struck me most was her answer to the question "What would you have done differently during your term as Prime Minister?" Bhutto's insightful response was that she wished she hadn't felt the need to appear tougher to compensate for being female, a persistent issue for women who run for and hold office.

I talked with Bhutto for a few minutes afterwards, and have trailed her return to ostensibly share power with Musharraf, and when that fell thru, to stay and participate in the electoral process. But during the last several weeks of violence in Pakistan, the thought that I have had most frequently is that she came home willing to die. It was hard to imagine that it would end any other way.

From Times Online

By posing in a Dior dress and high-heeled boots, President Sarkozy's glamorous Justice Minister has fuelled a revolt by judges and lawyers who are accusing her of destroying the fabric of the French justice system. As Rachida Dati, 42, defended herself yesterday over supposedly frivolous pictures for Paris Match magazine, 37 lawyers chained themselves to a courthouse in the southern town of Bourgoin in protest against her decision to close 300 tribunals across France.

Ms Dati, who is Mr Sarkozy's closest protégée and Cabinet icon of racial diversity, has drawn the wrath of the legal profession since she began to prune the sprawling court system this autumn. Judges' unions, court staff and lawyers are staging marches, hunger strikes and working to rule in order to reverse her reforms.

For many judges and lawyers, Ms Dati's decision to flaunt her looks in Paris Match was a provocation by a woman who has shown contempt towards the hardship that she is imposing. Bruno Thouzellier, president of the Syndical Union of Judges (USM), lamented "the contrast between her show of riches, dresses by grand couturiers and grand hotels and the difficult reality that justice personnel are living through".

From San Francisco Magazine

Nancy Pelosi did it. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer did it. Someday, Condi Rice and Kamala Harris might do it, too. With role models like these, you'd think the Bay Area would be teeming with starry-eyed young women dreaming of running for mayor, assemblywoman, governor, president. But just as the pioneers have reached the top, a new generation is looking at elected office and saying no thanks. What in Gloria Steinem's name is going on here? And what happens if they don't change their minds?

That Nancy Pelosi face-elongated, but with the same thin nose, round eyes, and ample eyelids-stares out from a shoulder-length mane of dark brown hair. Christine Pelosi, the second of Madam Speaker's five children, is taller than her mother and less camera- ready, but otherwise the resemblance is striking. On this brisk November evening, she is dressed like her mother, too, in a chic power pantsuit and black heels, as she holds court in Delancey Street's Crossroads Cafe, surrounded by copies of her just published book, Campaign Boot Camp: Basic Training for Future Leaders, and clusters of well-wishers.

Christine has been helping Mom win elections, for other people as well as for herself, since she was a kid stuffing envelopes on their Pac Heights living-room floor. These days, she heads the platform committee of the California Democratic Party, the same organization Nancy once chaired. Inside its battleship- gray cover, her book-nuts-and-bolts writing, nitty-gritty advice-is threaded with references to her mother and the political lessons learned at her knee, like "friendraising before fundraising," and a 10-point checklist for holding a successful press conference. There's even a copy of Nancy's handwritten countdown calendar for the 1987 special election that eked her into Congress, including planning sessions for neighborhood meetings (120 in six weeks!) and absentee-vote targets for her Ironing Board Brigade of grassroots volunteers.

From Deutsche Welle

Yulia Tymoshenko has been restored as Ukrainian Prime Minister after parliament narrowly endorsed her bid for leadership. A first round of voting was aborted due to fraud charges. In the second ballot, Tymoshenko needed 226 votes from the 450-member parliament to secure her place as the new head of government. And that is exactly what she got.

The first vote, which was aborted last week following claims by her party that the electronic polling equipment had been tampered with, saw Tymoshenko defeated by just one vote.

This time, however, there could be no doubt about the validity of the ballot. It was conducted by roll call in which each deputy was asked to state their position publicly. Tymoshenko's adversaries, who controlled just under half of parliament, did not take part in the show-of- hands poll, and it was not clear until the very last vote was cast how the axe would fall.

From The Telegraph

Women voters, long taken for granted by Hillary Clinton as she gave speeches about making history as the first female American president, are deserting her in droves for her rival Barack Obama. In Iowa, an entrance poll taken at the caucuses showed Mr Obama won 35 per cent of the female vote compared to 30 per cent for the New York senator. Only older women proved reliable supporters of Mrs Clinton.

Fighting to reverse her slide among younger women, Mrs Clinton has surrounded herself with female college students at her events, invited teenage girls onto her campaign bus and trudged through the snows of New Hampshire with her daughter Chelsea, 27.

In Saturday's Democratic debate, Mrs Clinton, who now trails Mr Obama by up to 13 points in New Hampshire polls, said indignantly: "I am an agent of change. I embody change. I think having the first woman president is a huge change with consequences across our country and the world."